Author Archives: JMN

Unknown's avatar

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

Beauford Delaney: ‘A Yearning for Ornament’

Posted on December 18, 2025 by JMN

It leaves more room to follow what’s actually happening on the paper. … Though he drew them with confidence and care, you can see him yearning to ornament and exalt his subjects rather than just transcribe them. … The pulsing … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Marlon Mullen Talks With Paint

Posted on December 17, 2025 by JMN

“I think he feels understood through his painting, and that gives him a way to talk to the world.” (The artist’s sister) I feel an uncanny affinity with Marlon Mullen’s ceremony of preparation! A colleague and I have lately ruminated … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Skindance

Posted on December 11, 2025 by JMN

(c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

More Galleries | Tagged | 4 Comments

Plenty of Ouch for the Wicked

Posted on December 8, 2025 by JMN

The fellowship is festive.Rectified canticles boom from the sanctum,Would you believe? … Marching as to war,All the pardoned felonsGoing on before… Rigor mortified, the righteousStiff-arm the anxious,The walking doomed. Worm meat.All told in the scriptures:They will go poof. Straight to … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Mel Leipzig, the ‘Chekhov of Trenton’

Posted on December 5, 2025 by JMN

The acrylic canvases of Mel Leipzig, a painter christened by Peter Schjeldahl as the “Chekhov of Trenton,” reach me as analogs to the loudest arena-rock virtuoso guitar hero solos you can think of. They are an ostentation of look-what-I-can-do. They … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Montserrat of the Heart

Posted on December 3, 2025 by JMN

When I thought I’d become a poet my head was as empty as a young male’s under-developed frontal lobe can be. In hindsight I can see it now. It was hiding in plain sight, the poetry, waiting for me to … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

‘The Things That You’re Liable to Read in the Bible…’

Posted on December 2, 2025 by JMN

“… They ain’t necessarily so,” goes the song in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. “If we could stop coming at the Bible postured as though we’re the ones that own it… to prop up, whether it’s theologies, whatever makes us comfortable, … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

‘Something Endlessly Inspiring and Strange’

Posted on November 29, 2025 by JMN

While Shakespeare’s plays must have stemmed from some personal experience, they take the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” and, through an act of artistic creation, fashion them into something endlessly inspiring and strange. (Drew Lichtenberg) Inspiring and … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Portrait of the Reader as an Exigent Mug

Posted on November 27, 2025 by JMN

“Boundless extension of torment, incredible intensity of suffering, unceasing variety of torture. This is what the Divine Majesty, so outraged by sinners, demands.” (From “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce) I’ve been hearing a milestone … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

I Have a Bone to Pick with the Food Chain

Posted on November 24, 2025 by JMN

In a neighboring town I glimpsed a lone cow in a chute back of a meat processing plant. She was staring fixedly at something unidentified off to my right, heedless of my passing. Only one outcome was left for her.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | 4 Comments